Pompeii Fast Food

 Newly excavated Roman fast food stalls in Pompeii

The newly excavated food stall

Only two thirds (about 120 acres) of ancient Pompeii have been excavated. The rest is still covered in debris from the eruption almost 2,000 years ago. And while it's long been agreed in the international community that it's best to leave the rest untouched -- funds are better spent on the upkeep of what has already been excavated -- in 2017, archaeologists began to excavate a new section. To stabilize the excavated part of the city, it was decided to excavate the three-kilometer perimeter around the unexcavated part -- known as Regio V -- leaving a space between the ruins and the third of Pompeii that has never been explored.

Part of the “Grande Progetto Pompei,” or Great Pompeii Project, the $140 million conservation and restoration program launched in 2012 and largely underwritten by the European Union, the Regio V dig has already yielded skeletons, coins, a wooden bed, a stable harboring the remains of a thoroughbred horse (bronze-plated wooden horns on the saddle; iron harness with small bronze studs), gorgeously preserved frescoes, murals and mosaics of mythological figures, and other dazzling examples of ancient Roman artistry.

One of the very recent excavations is a freshly uncovered snack bar. This mundane convenience is one of some 80 that have been found over the years scattered through the city. The large jars (dolia), or terracotta vessels, embedded in the masonry serving-counter establish that this was a Thermopolium, the fast food shop of its day, where drinks and hot foods were served. The storekeeper lowered pots of hot food into circular holes in the counter. Typical menu: coarse bread with salty fish, baked cheese, lentils and spicy wine.

The one excavated this month included a large dolium that had contained wine. In another dolium, they found the skeletal remains of a mouse, suggesting that the vessel might have contained grains of some kind, and that the mouse — like the residents of ancient Pompeii — fell victim to the eruption. The contents of two other jars remain to be analyzed, but Chiara Corbino, the archaeozoologist involved in the dig, said it appeared that they contained two kinds of dishes: a pork and fish combination found “in other contexts at Pompeii,” and a concoction involving snails, fish and sheep, perhaps a soup or stew. Further analysis is expected to determine whether vegetables were part of the ancient recipe.

Fresco of a sea nymph riding a seahorse

Valeria Amoretti, the anthropologist who heads Pompeii’s applied research laboratory, described the thermopolium as “a complex environment” that provides information that “had never been detected at Pompeii.” It also exemplifies the high quality of decoration. Painted panels on the front of a Z-shaped counter included a central image of a Nereid, the mythological sea nymph, riding a sea horse, along with frescoes of a rooster, ducks being prepared for cooking and a chained dog. There was also a painted image of a thermopolium, complete with amphora and jars. 

Massimo Osanna, the site’s director, said in an interview recently that work on the thermopolium was expected to finish by March. He hoped to make the site available to visitors by Easter, he said, coronavirus permitting.